I like this, nice and neat, and the tabs at the top make important items much more accessable than the side-bar does. I think the “Introduction to the series” tab is good to have right at the top, otherwise the a newcomer will be confused as to why the internet’s most popular Catholic blog is called “What does the Prayer Really Say?”. I like the artistic use of your little winking biretta man too!

Father,
The layout is good, but having so bright of a background could lead to eye strain and headaches. I feel that a dark background would be much better. The tabs are a good touch. This could allow you to break up the page and allow it to load faster for those with slower connections.
Tridentine-Catholic

I like the design in general; it\’s a nice improvement – save the washed-out body-text. I prefer a higher contrast for reading. A dab of color looks nice… Perhaps you could have the WDTPRS in Burgundy or Navy.

One other suggestion is to have a single page for All your PodCatz and PrayerCatz (an archive Page for your MP3 files) in one location where one could easily download several files successively. You know why I don’t do iPod… :-)

Hello Father. A little bit more colour would be nice, and I hope you will keep your picture for the folks ! Excellent work Father, though I do like the current design very much. Perhaps we could obtain a ‘Motu Proprio’ for those who prefer the old design ?? (ha, ha)

Very l337 Father, especially the biretta smilies. The tabs make the side bar more organized and accessible. However, I agree with Vincenzo’s suggestion of keeping your picture and the “Save the Liturgy…” motto near the top.

That’s a beautiful, clean design for the new layout. Go for it! My only suggestion would be to echo what some commenters have already said about the body text needing a bit more contrast for ease of reading. Apart from that, there isn’t a thing I’d change.

Good, Fr Z, except, well, by now people know I like it black or white! It might be well to darken up the text just a bit.

Also, for a picture of yourself which I think you should include as well… makes things more personal… why not have it alternate from you preaching to you raising up the Host after the consecration. This would teach what WDTPRS means. After all, Lex orandi…

May I join the group suggesting that dove-gray letters on white background is hard to read? If plain black is painful, perhaps a dark–maybe charcoal?–shade of gray or navy would do.

OT: I live in the diocese of Brownsville and while you wouldn’t think anything at all happened last July, the new pastor has installed a pretty gold-colored framing…something…surround? on the wall around the tabernacle now and he usually says the Confiteor. Also he’s corrected the weird local tendency to stand while saying “Lord I am not worthy…” which is good. As my sweetie says, it’s getting more Catholic around here. Though my decidedly non-churchy spouse also says that if an old-style Mass should be offered in our area, we’ll go. And that was an instant response, he didn’t even think first. I think the professional liturgy-critters underestimate the degree of interest in the silent lay people’s hearts.

Looks pretty good. OTOH, the clerical-black stripes are a cool motif, and maybe there’s some way to keep the color in the new design.

The only change I’d really like to see, personally, is to drop the bells and whistles from the pages for individual entries, but keep them on the blog’s home page. Since I often read the blog from my mobile device, all those blogrolls, award buttons, and extra graphics just drive the load time and the page size up, up, up.

Father, were I you, I would not change much at all. Currently, the layout of the blog is very distinctive while the proposed one is very generic. I do think that the addition of a third column on the right side would be beneficial. Maybe blog related things could be put on the right while more general information: links, pages, references, &c could be put on the left.

On either design, Fr. Z, one may obtain a 2-column representation of your posts and others’ by doing a selective copy and paste and transferring it to a word processor. While there, one may print it out in a 2-column newspaper format, which is easier on one’s eyes. One can also read faster! The word processor can automatically wrap text around pictures, and the pictures are put neatly in the new format.

May the joy of worshipping the new Born King, in loving devotion to His All holy Mother, and all the Angels and Saints bring you and, all who learn from your instruction, find this New Year the fulfillment for all that leads you closer to the Lord. Please pray for this sinner.

I meant I like the first illustration: white and light grey. And I agree with keeping that picture of yourself.

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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